cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6977720
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12228
Anti-DEI and sports ban provisions for the military still exist in the bill, but the removal of a health care provision is a major victory for transgender people in congressional legislation.
Late Sunday night, congressional leaders released the negotiated text of the National Defense Authorization Act. The House and Senate had each already passed their own versions—both with anti-LGBTQ+ provisions, including a sweeping ban on Defense Department funding for gender-affirming surgeries. That measure, which would have compounded the barrage of anti-trans actions already underway in the military under Donald Trump’s command, was widely expected to survive into the final bill. But in a surprise twist, the negotiated text dropped the surgical funding ban altogether—marking the second time in recent weeks that major anti-trans riders have collapsed during the congressional process. Though the final version still includes anti-DEI language and a transgender sports ban for those enrolled at military academies, defeating the surgical funding ban is a significant and unexpected victory.
Earlier in the shutdown fight, the National Defense Authorization Act emerged as a major secondary flashpoint between House and Senate negotiators. Many LGBTQ+ observers watched its trajectory closely for signs of whether Democrats would fold on transgender rights. On the House side, a slate of amendments from Rep. Nancy Mace passed into the bill—targeting transgender service members and dependents across military health insurance, athletics, bathrooms, pride flags, and more. The Senate side did not have most of those measures, but a major provision remained: a ban on funding for transgender-related surgeries, a policy that would have affected not only service members and their families but potentially any company with a military contract, blocking their insurance plans from covering transgender surgeries. Stunningly, despite parallel provisions having passed in both chambers, the final negotiated bill includes neither. Lawmakers did not split the difference; they removed the surgery ban entirely.
Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, one of the chief architects of the anti-trans provisions in the House version of the bill, posted immediately after the text was released, writing, “NDAA is out, furiously reading through to see which of our Amendments made it in, and which did not.” In the hours that followed, her account stayed conspicuously silent about the defeat of her anti-trans amendments.
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